Watched For and Seen
by Liralen Li
Summary: Yoruichi and Urahara go into battle. Rated for the amount of bodily damage depicted. Spoils through Chapter 151, a bit into the Hueco Mundo arc. LJ Springkink prompt: sexual tension during battle--"Watch me."


_Author's Note  
_

_Another LiveJournal springkink prompt: Yoruichi/Urahara: sexual tension during battle--"Watch me."_

_This spoils through Chapter 151, a few chapters into the Hueco Mundo arc._

* * *

They flash-step into the battlefield.

With one hand he holds up the emblem of his power, and the world turns blood red. She goes slit-eyed as the power of the blow he catches shakes the earth around them, but the blow doesn't shift his arm, or even his grip. The blood-splattered boy crouches behind them. The smell of blood, the knowledge of battle fills her senses, makes the world sharp and clear and absolute, makes her awareness of him absolute.

He sing-songs, "I'm ever sooooo sorry about our late arrival," Benihime's blood shield shatters before he can address the one he protects, "Kurosaki-san."

The formality of Kisuke's words is belied by his taunting tone, and her own tension rises in the wake of it. An angry enemy is an easy enemy, and he's making it easier on both of them.

The huge thing talks, tries a taunt as well, and she just watches as the big monster's center moves off balance. In an instant she throws the huge Arrancar with just a flick of her right arm. She feels the wind from the fall of the clumsy one's bulk blowing back her hair and he lands so hard she can hear the crack of tendons and bones, feel the earth bend and buckle and fly from the impact. She poses, still again, by Kisuke. She sees the cords of muscle in his strong throat, that smirk under that hat, and knows he's probably hard under the robes just from being where they are, together.

More bellowing from the ox. Half a step and all that power is just wasted on the earth, and the earth and air shake with that power. She and he do not.

She says, "I'll tend to Inoue. I have the medicine."

"Yes, Ma'am," he says, and his show of obedience to her stirs her desires for him even more. She knows he is watching the whole of the battle as closely as she. They are here to assess the enemy, to see what they really are. There is also that slender, beautiful shadow; a pool of quiet power, still and watching at the edge of the field. She might as well give that one the show he needs to take back with him. Watch me, she thinks.

She steps. The huge hand is as good a take-off pad as any. She leaps and kicks the ox in the face. Hard. His hide and bone is far, far harder than she expects, but his face smashes in satisfyingly. Blood sprays in all directions. Inside, she curses as her left leg crumples. She should have gone to shunkou, but she hadn't expected him to be this solid with reiatsu. With that shadow watching, she cannot show a thing, and it _is _only pain.

With the force she's put into kick, she pushes off, launches herself into the air, curving up. She uses the horizon as an orienting line as she balances her body. She forces her power into displaying perfect grace. She regrets having to use a second blow, but she knows, with that one watching, she's going to have to make as sure of the iron-skinned one as she can. She glances for her target, flips, and strikes with everything she's got, but this time using her left arm. He goes down like a bolt-stunned beef. Her arm goes numb, unfeeling as well, but that's her indicator that she's really used everything she could.

Well, it is an indicator along with the shock wave that lights the sky, shakes the trees like a gale, and causes Kisuke to hang onto his hat.

She gets up. Endorphines start to flood in, masking the pain, making her even more aroused. Muscles, will, pride, battle lust, and reiatsu all focused tight, solid enough to make her look graceful, absolute, she takes slow deliberate steps to bloody, battered, and broken Inoue. She gently gathers that limp body to her breast with both arms, but lets her rest against the unfeeling arm.

"Yo... Yoru... ichi... san?" Even broken, stammering around smashed jaw and head, the girl addresses her formally. It allows her training to snap into place, and she shows none of her horror at the blood, the shattered limbs.

"Yes?" she says.

"Ku... Kuro... Kuro... sa... ki... kun... is..."

"He is fine... do not worry yourself." She holds up the vial in her good, right hand. "Can you drink this?"

"... yes..."

The ground shifts, the reiatsu of the hollow behind her moves. But she knows who has her back. Gently, steadily with a hand as still as stone, she feeds Inoue the medicine, stroking her broken throat to make her swallow. The medicine goes down. The roar, the bellowing cry, all mean nothing to Yoruichi. It is just the wind, but she just gives the big idiot a hard look, "You are a persistant bastard, aren't you?"

But the ceros gets her attention. And Kisuke's as well.

She watches him balance the incoming forces perfectly with his own strike. It isn't just the power that drew her to him in the first place; it was that cool control. And from that she grew to appreciate his abilities to see, to use what he saw, and to keep secrets behind those tarnished silver eyes.

Kisuke's banter flows from him like a teasing come-on: uncertain words mask an intent and certainty as hard as his steel. "Ah. You don't seem to believe me. I guess I'll just demonstrate it again, then."

And then he unleashes his will with that woman of a zanpakutou, "Cry Benihime!"

And the strike is shockingly blocked by that other watcher, that shadow under the trees. But even as his power is met and matched, blood flows from slender, white fingertips. So, not impossibly strong, just far stronger than either of them had thought. But they are both acknowledged, their power, their show was good enough for an impasse, this time. And hidden under the words, the guarded retreat, is the knowledge of all that they have, each of them, watched for and seen.


End file.
